North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Yet frequently, in many companies, staff rotations are difficult to achieve because of the transfer period - especially for sensitive roles. The assurance of a contract is only partial.

 

I don't think anyone is saying that "proper" heritage railways have to be volunteer run. I certainly wouldn't wish to imply that that was the case, nor that in any way "only volunteers can show a true commitment to the cause." I'm sure we can all point to paid staff members who are incredibly dedicated and have a passion for heritage railways every bit as much as their volunteer companions (a fact that becomes clear when you consider that many members of paid staff also volunteer, either on their home line or elsewhere).

The reason for discussion in the NYMR case though comes back to finances. The railway is losing money, and one major financial outgoing is salaries. So it is at least reasonable to consider to what extent individual roles on the railway could be discharged by volunteers. At which point, your typical defence comes in that puts such discussions always into the "too hard" camp. It may of course be that there are some roles where it is simply impossible to cover a vital function using volunteers, but I think the frustration - certainly from many close to the railway and seeing it losing money - is that your typical starting point always comes from a perspective of the default should be paid staff and volunteers only where the role isn't critical; rather than a position of the default should be volunteers and only use paid staff where volunteers aren't possible.

So it is a question of emphasis. Many of your justifications of why volunteers can't at least in principal discharge critical roles seem to come from a Chicken Licken view of the world in which the sky is always about to fall on your head. To take one example, your view of insurance is that "an insurer might require that role to be carried out by a paid member of staff", but you haven't substantiated that with "there is actual evidence in the sector that insures are requiring that". Essentially you seem to be using lots of "what ifs" and vague "this is the direction the sector is moving" to justify the status quo, even though that status quo is financially untenable.

I would also note - and this has come out in earlier discussions - that the flow from volunteer to paid staff member is very heavily weighted in one direction, in that it is easy to replace a volunteer with a paid role, but having done so very hard to go back the other way. Given that fact, it should make any railway board very cautious about increasing the number of paid roles in a business that even in good times has marginal profitability and a very peaky cashflow situation.

Tom

 

I agree with a lot of what you say. It's the old gag about the advice on direction......if I was you I wouldn't start from here! However the NYMR is at a crossroads. Having taken easy route it's very hard to retrench. The way forward can't simply be "replace with volunteers". That's not achievable in the timeframe required. Generating surpluses from new activities should help but substantial cost cutting has serious consequences for the scope and scale of the railway's activities and, inevitably, opportunities to volunteer. Action taken so far to cut back the number of operating days has reduced the number of FTE posts by around 13% ( not as suggested increased the number of paid roles). The route forwards may involve accepting that searching for ways to sustain the NYMR as it is today is a vain quest It may be a case of starting with a clean sheet asking what size and scale of heritage railway is sustainable rather than assuming what's already there must continue.

 

All fair, but there is a strategic choice about which roles are cut, and that choice determines the future paths. If that decision is to reduce the ability to volunteer, then that itself speaks volumes for the approach of the railway.

 

The decision isn't to reduce the ability to volunteer as an objective but the inevitable and unavoidable consequence of any radical cost saving reduction in the scope and scale of the railway.

 

I repeat myself; the decision made was to reduce that capacity.

To elaborate, the choice made was to remove roles and not to restructure in a way that protected that capacity. That was a choice; whether it was made consciously or not may be a different question.

 

According to Lineisclear...The way forward can't simply be "replace with volunteers". That's not achievable in the timeframe required.

That's rather an enigmatic statement, John.

What exactly is meant by the timeframe required?

 

I have no idea if the HRA or any of the heritage lines recognise these numbers included in this report commissioned by the I.O.M Government for their railway, but from about page 52 onwards of the report linked from the webpage it seems to imply the NYMR has way more volunteers than any line other than the combined Ffestiniog and WHR. OK things may have changed since January 2024, and I guess that means 2023 data and of course then and some of the assumptions may be skewed for IOM needs, such as volunteers only coming form as far away as 30km, but it does show in one place some interesting comparisons.

https://www.gov.im/news/2024/jan/17...n-heritage-rail-network-is-published-in-full/

This link my bring up the report direct.
https://www.gov.im/media/1381876/isle-of-man-heritage-railway-review-final-report_compressed.pdf

Many thanks to the person on Rail UK that found this report.

 

Does the clean sheet involve reducing the length of the line and closing stations?

 

The auditors were satisfied that the NYMR is a going concern for the twelve months following the signing of the 2024/5 accounts a month or so ago. The finance director has made no secret of the fact that beyond that the future is very uncertain. Others have suggested that employment costs could be reduced but natural wastage but that would take a long time to produce any worthwhile result. The railway needs to define its survival strategy beyond the next twelve months in terms of the costs it can afford, the revenue it can generate and what that means in terms of the size and scale of a viable business.

 

Like everyone else I hope not but it should be whatever is necessary to ensure the NYMR continues as a viable operation in some form. I doubt that closing stations would achieve much but whether, for instance, some services would operate over only part of the line or diesel haulage might be the norm over other sections might be the sort of cost saving options that need to be considered.

 

We seem to have gone from a going concern, with the bank's full confidence, a few months ago, to just 11 months to possible closure.

Just how has this been allowed to happen?

 

A going concern judgement is very specific to the 12 month period following sign off of the audited accounts. It's not intended to indicate or imply future viability beyond that point. Nothing has changed fundamantally from the previous forecast that radical change would be required to achieve sustainability beyond 2025/6 (apart from encouraging advance sales of Flying Scotsman tickets and recent improved performance bringing us nearer to budget) . Why is the financial situation so challenging? The NYMR is not alone amongst larger heritage railways in incurring operating losses with a major cause being unsustainable cost increases coupled with pressures on consumer spending. The hospitality sector has been hit disproportionately as witness the current spate of pub/ restaurant and other hospitality business failures. The NYMR still enjoys the confidence of its bank but retaining that may require tough and unpopular decisons to get through 2025/6 and beyond.

 

I don’t think you understand what people are actually saying. No one is saying paid staff is bad. What we are saying with regard to the NYMR is that the staff payroll is too great relative to its turnover and is unsustainable. Non-staff overheads have been pared back as much as they can to balance the books but it is not enough. Theee are two alternatives that can be pursued to balance the books and permit the reinstatement of deferred renewals and overhauls. One is to grow the business at a rate that is significantly greater than the cost of doing so and the second is to reduce the staff costs. You have spent a lot of time saying that business is no longer the same as it was post Covid so growing the business is going to be hard. Cutting staff costs is also going to be hard but more reliance on volunteers wheee possible will go a long way to making it easier.

 

Agree with that Steve and the NYMR has confirmed recently it's intention to do that. The questions are:
(1) How quickly, and to what extent, can that shift be achieved over the next twelve months?
(2) How do you reduce cost with the least possible shrinkage of the railway?

 

Who promotes short cut offs as being the correct approach? For a start, it will depend on the actual loco and its design. Try running an LMS 4F at less than 40% if you can and it’ll object. Ask Chris Cubitt where he’ll put 60007 on the main line at 75mph if he gets the chance and he’ll say 5%. Ask him the same question when on the NYMR (at 25, not 75!) and he’ll say 20-25%.
A refreshing change of subject.

 

I think that you underestimate peoples willingness to do these things. I certainly used to with the NYMR and still do at Middleton. There’s a volunteer on the NYMR who looks after footplate competence in terms of making sure everyone’s competence is up-to-date and organising when it isn’t. Ironically it fell to him after a paid employee let the side down. Said volunteer does much more, as well, including standing in when short of firemen.

 

When I finally decided to give up paid employment I’d had a bad day and told by boss just that and why. I was on 3 months notice but I was told to clear my desk and go. I had to go to the MD to persuade him that I actually wanted to do those three months and wasn’t about to do my best to ruin the company. I did those three months and was asked back to help a couple of times, as well. Funnily enough, I drove past one of those plants today and thought about that and it was before reading these comments.

 

The auditors consider it to be a going concern but, in doing so, I doubt that they have considered such things as deferred maintenance which the railway has been doing in abundance. In Nigel Trotters time deferred maintenance of civils never really happened as there were substantial track and bridge renewals every year. The same could not be said for locos and coaches, though, and these have been treated to use and cast aside for many a year.

 

Forget bringing a Urie S15 inside 40% perhaps 35% on the 1:80. If you do people tend to be wearing their drinks and the engine won’t steam. The objective when driving is to be kind to the machinery. That means having regard to its type and condition. Our Black 5 was happier (quieter) coasting in full gear with the regulator shut than in the “approved” 50% with light steam. There is too much focus on doing it by numbers at times at the expense of understanding the objective and the various options to achieve it.